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School of Pharmacy

team: Pharmaceutics Professor Emeritus

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Kenneth Thummel

Education

  • B.S., Chemistry
  • Ph.D., Pharmaceutical Sciences

Research Interests

  • Drug metabolism kinetics
  • Intestinal first-pass metabolism
  • Mechanisms of inter-individual variability in metabolic drug clearance and drug response
  • Pharmacogenetics
  • Fat soluble vitamins and regulation of DMETs

Courses Taught

  • PCEUT 502
  • PCEUT 506
  • PCEUT 510
  • PCEUT 513
  • PCEUT 534
  • PCEUT 583
  • PCEUT 586
  • MEDCH 527

Biography

Kenneth Thummel received his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Science from the University of Washington in 1987 and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Pharmacology at the University of Connecticut Health Science Center. In 1989, he was appointed to the University of Washington School of Pharmacy faculty, promoted to the rank of Professor in 2001 and was Chairman of the Department of Pharmaceutics between 2006 – 2019. He currently holds the title of Professor of Pharmaceutics and is an Adjunct Professor in the UW Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. Dr. Thummel’s research interests include the elucidation of genetic, hormonal and environmental factors that contribute to interindividual differences in xenobiotic biotransformation, in particular, intestinal cytochrome P450 3A-mediated first-pass drug metabolism, as well as gene x diet modifiers of drug response in Alaska Native and American Indian people. Dr. Thummel is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists, and the recipient of the Rawls-Palmer Progress in Medicine Award from ASCPT. He is a Past-President of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics.

Selected Publications

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Thummel+K

Danny Shen

Accepting Student to Lab: No

Education

  • PhD in Pharmaceutics, State University of New York at Buffalo
  • BA in Chemistry and Biology, Luther College

Research Interests

  • Opioid pharmacokinetics & pharmacodynamics
  • Pharmacokinetic modeling & simulations
  • Pharmacokinetics of herb-drug interactions

Courses Taught

  • PCEUT 505 Concepts in Pharmaceutical Sciences I
  • PCEUT 503 Drug Transport & Delivery
  • PCEUT 531 Pharmaceutical Formulation: Principles and Dosage Forms

Biography

Dr. Shen received his doctoral degree in pharmaceutics from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1975. He is currently Professor Emeritus of Pharmaceutics at the University of Washington. He was Chair of the Department of Pharmacy from 1999 to 2011. He also held a Member appointment in the Clinical Research Division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center from 1973 to 2016. Prior to his joining the faculty at the University of Washington in 1984, he held faculty appointments at the University of Kansas Medical Center (1975-1979) and State University of New York at Buffalo (1979-1984). Dr. Shen is a Fellow of the AAPS, and is 2010 President of the Association. He is also a Past-Chair of the Pharmaceutical Sciences Section and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Dr. Shen is a member of the editorial advisory board for AAPS Journal, Pharmaceutical Research, and Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences. He has served as advisor or consultant to NIH, FDA and pharmaceutical industry. Dr.

Shen has a broad range of research interests involving first-pass drug metabolism, drug transport in the central nervous system, pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics of opioid analgesics, and pharmacokinetics of herb-drug interactions. He has published over 200 journal articles, reviews and book chapters.

Selected Publications

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/1PAALeBQPgL/bibliography/public/

Isabelle Ragueneau-Majlessi

Education

  • MD, University of Paris VI
  • Master in Biomedical Regulatory Affairs, University of Washington

Research interests

  • Mechanisms of PK-based drug interactions
  • Regulatory framework of drug interactions assessment
  • Clinical relevance and risk management of drug interactions

Biography

Dr. Ragueneau is co-author of the DIDB and e-PKGene applications (https://www.druginteractionsolutions.org/) and Director of UW Drug Interaction Solutions. She received her medical degree from St Antoine University in Paris, France, and specialized in Clinical Pharmacology. Prior to moving to the US, Dr. Ragueneau designed and supervised clinical studies in the private sector and in academia for over 6 years. She started working at the University of Washington in 1999, as a Research Associate, then Principal Research Scientist and Project Manager for the Drug Interaction Database. In November 2009, Dr. Ragueneau joined the faculty of the Department of Pharmaceutics as Clinical Associate Professor and was promoted to full Professor in 2014. Dr. Ragueneau has published in the areas of drug-drug interactions (DDIs), drug disposition and clinical pharmacology. She is interested in the regulatory framework of DDI assessment and the clinical relevance of drug interactions. Dr. Ragueneau graduated from the University of Washington’s Master’s Degree Program in Biomedical Regulatory Affairs in 2010. In 2015, she was named a UW CoMotion Presidential Innovation Fellow.

Selected Publications

PubMed link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=ragueneau-majlessi[Author]%20OR%20ragueneau%20i[Author]

Shiu-Lok Hu

Accepting Students to Lab: No

Education

  • PhD in molecular biology, University of Wisconsin
  • BA with great distinction in biochemistry, University of California, Berkeley

Research Interests

  • HIV/AIDS
  • Viral pathogenesis
  • Vaccine research and design
  • Non-human primate models for AIDS

Courses Taught

  • Pharmaceutics 533: Biopharmaceutics and Drug Delivery
  • Pharmaceutics 586: Pharmaceutical Biotechnology
  • Conjoint 543: Vaccines

Biography

Dr. Shiu-Lok Hu obtained his B.A. degree in Biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, Ph. D. degree in Molecular Biology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and post-doctoral training in tumor virology in Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. He started working on HIV/AIDS in 1985 when he joined a biotech company in Seattle, which later became a part of the Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute. During this time (1985-1997), he developed the first recombinant virus as a candidate HIV vaccine for FDA-approved clinical trials and provided the first demonstration of vaccine protection against SIV infection in a macaque model by the “poxvirus prime-protein boost” immunization strategy.

Dr. Hu joined the faculty at the University of Washington, Seattle, in 1997. He is currently Professor of Pharmaceutics and Adjunct Professor of Microbiology. His research focuses on the design of immunogens to elicit broadly neutralizing antibodies against HIV-1, characterizing the targets and mechanisms of protective immunity against primate lentiviruses, and factors that contribute to the resistance or adaptation of lentiviruses in primate species.

Selected Publications

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/myncbi/1hcirPd7B7jkc/bibliography/48227127/public/?sort=date&direction=descending

Rene Levy

Accepting New Students: No

Education

  • BS Pharmacy University of Paris, France
  • PhD Pharmaceutical Chemistry UC San Francisco

Research Interests

  • Pharmacokinetics
  • Drug-Drug Interactions
  • Development of new Antiepileptic Drugs

Biography

RENÉ H. LEVY, PhD is Professor Emeritus of Pharmaceutics at the University of Washington in Seattle.
He has served as department chair for 26 years. He has published more than 350 research articles and several books on the treatment of epilepsy.
In 1989, Dr. Levy was named “Ambassador for Epilepsy” by the International Bureau of Epilepsy. In the late 1990s, he co-founded the Eilat Conference on the Development of New Antiepileptic Drugs which is still running on a biennial basis.
In 2007, Dr Levy became “Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science”.
In 2011, Dr. Levy received a “Lifetime Achievement Award from the Epilepsy Foundation”. The foundation’s president and CEO said of Levy: “He is well deserving of this award honoring his career commitment in development of prescription drug therapy for people living with epilepsy.
In 2013, Dr Levy received the William G. Lennox-Cesare T. Lombroso Award, the highest award given by the American Epilepsy Society, in recognition of lifetime accomplishment and contributions related to epilepsy.

Selected Publications

  • Colins C, Levy R, Ragueneau-Majlessi I, Hachad H. Prediction of maximum exposure in poor metabolizers following inhibition of nonpolymorphic pathways. Curr Drug Metab. 2006 Apr;7(3):295-9
  • Levy RH, Collins C. Risk and predictability of drug interactions in the elderly. Int Rev. Neurobiol. 2007;81:235-51.
  • Zhang H, Ragueneau-Majlessi I, Levy RH. Interaction between clopidogrel and proton pump inhibitors: hypothesis to explain multifactorial CYP2C19 inhibition. Drug Metab Lett. 2009 Dec;3(4):287-9.
  • Hachad H, Overby CL, Argon S, Yeung CK, Ragueneau-Majlessi I, Levy RH. e-PKGene: a knowledge-based research tool for analysing the impact of genetics on drug exposure. Hum Genomics. 2011 Jul 1;5(5):506-15.
  • Bialer M, Johannessen SI, Koepp MJ, Levy RH, Perucca E, Tomson T, White HS Progress report on new antiepileptic drugs: A summary of the Fourteenth Eilat Conference on New Antiepileptic Drugs and Devices (EILAT XIV). I. Drugs in preclinical and early clinical development. Epilepsia. 2018 Oct;59(10):1811-1841. doi: 10.1111/epi.14557.
  • Bialer M, Johannessen SI, Koepp MJ, Levy RH, Perucca E, Tomson T, White HS. Progress report on new antiepileptic drugs: A summary of the Fourteenth Eilat Conference on New Antiepileptic Drugs and Devices (EILAT XIV). II. Drugs in more advanced clinical development. Epilepsia. 2018 Oct;59(10):1842-1866. doi: 10.1111/epi.14555. Erratum in: Epilepsia. 2019 Jan;60(1):187.
  • Levy RH, Ragueneau-Majlessi I. Past, Present, and Future of Drug-Drug Interactions. Clin Pharmacol Ther. 2019 Feb 17. doi: 10.1002/cpt.1349.